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FTA: "In particular many attendees believed it was an anachronism that the US government got to decide which body should regulate the net's address system as a legacy of its funding for Arpanet - a precursor to the internet which helped form its technical core."

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, I can't imagine why the US didn't sign. "Hey, that thing you paid for, developed, and turned into a thriving platform for social and commercial activity? We don't like that you own it and we don't, so would you mind handing it over?".

Well yes, but there's a difference in culture between the US and some other places that impacts how this is viewed.

In the US it is all about the individual. Collectivism is frowned upon. Europe is more socialist, which is a point part way between the US and countries like China, where in China the group is everything and the individual is nothing.

The more collective your outlook, the more it makes sense to take from the individual WHEN that is for the greater overall good. Europe strikes a balance betwee

Come on, the Internet is not a thing "paid for, developed and a thriving platform", it's a fucking convention. It's a protocol, like a language if you prefer. It's not a "thing". There are several other network protocols and there has been several other protocols since way before the internet. In France we were surfing on transpac and X25 before we joined the internet. The world now uses the Internet, precisely because it is very simple and open. If you really wanted to call it your own, then have fun surfi

Come on, the Internet is not a thing "paid for, developed and a thriving platform", it's a fucking convention.

Absolutely true! And if you want to roll your own internet, hey, we've done the groundwork, feel free to implement those protocols (hell, feel free to just take the already-implemented public domain code) and you can have your very own internet, domestically controlled. But as the real problem here, you don't want "an" internet - You want America's internet. You even say as much:

I understand you are probably trolling but let me get some facts straight.
Yuo didn't "kindly let us use it", we decided to use it, because it was open and free. Nobody ever required the permission of anybody to use it.
Except Slashdot, every single website I visit on a regular basis comes from France. I'm not even using Google.com if you want to know, I have a local version of it.
It's not America's internet that we want to use, it's the global one. And we could not do that without the US or it would be a

Come on, the Internet is not a thing "paid for, developed and a thriving platform", it's a fucking convention. It's a protocol, like a language if you prefer. It's not a "thing". There are several other network protocols and there has been several other protocols since way before the internet. In France we were surfing on transpac and X25 before we joined the internet. The world now uses the Internet, precisely because it is very simple and open. If you really wanted to call it your own, then have fun surfing on your own web site. If the British went around calling the English language their own, the world would juse use esperanto for good.

The U.S. should trademark the word "Internet". If one tuple isn't in the U.S. it shouldn't be called the Internet. It should be called "Internet-like", or "Internet-compatible", or "using the Internet method". Especially in France. They can call it Telepac-Plus or whatever. There's no reason they should be able to just take what we've created and popularized. It's OUR heritage, not theirs. OUR language, not theirs. The French should stop stealing our refined and superior culture.

This is nothing about DNS. The slippery slope argument (for good or ill) the major Internet powers used to justify refusal is that treaty language implies that signatory governments have a mutual international obligation to do content monitoring (e.g., deep packet inspection). These clauses were argued to be non-content-neutral, and (for instance) coud allow Iran to insist that the US prohibit blastphemous content (for Shiite Muslim definitions of "blastphemy").

Quoting the article "In particular many attendees believed it was an anachronism that the US government got to decide which body should regulate the net's address system..." emphasis added. At least one complaint by the countries that wanted UN control was about DNS. It's a stupid argument. That's the only point I was responding to. I actually agree with the holdout countries on content restrictions. I don't find it hard to believe the US government here, because at it's worse it's been better than, f

This is nothing about DNS. The slippery slope argument (for good or ill) the major Internet powers used to justify refusal is that treaty language implies that signatory governments have a mutual international obligation to do content monitoring (e.g., deep packet inspection). These clauses were argued to be non-content-neutral, and (for instance) coud allow Iran to insist that the US prohibit blastphemous content (for Shiite Muslim definitions of "blastphemy").

The problem is that the root zone is controlled by the US Department of Commerce [icann.org] ("National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) - which is an office within the United States Department of Commerce - authorizes changes to the root"), so their root servers serve up information that's ultimately US-controlled.

As has been pointed out before, nothing stops any given tin-pot dictatorship from building their own version of the Internet that connects to the rest of the Internet,

If it "connects to the rest of the Internet", it's not "their own version of the Internet", it's a subnetwork of the Internet.

They're just too lazy or too cheap to do so,

If it "connects to the rest of the Internet", they don't have to buy their own protocols or whatever it is you're thinking of. They might have to pay for the hardware and software, but everybody has to do that.

It seems like the Final Acts of ITU at WCIT2012 will be remembered as crimes against humanity, no less. Read the act: http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Documents/final-acts-wcit-12.pdf [itu.int]
If you'll realize the the consequences you'll get the real tragedy: Governmental supervision on content in the name of "security & anti-spam"; the 'Free-Riders' (Google , Facebook, AWS & likes) will keep 'riding' on our infrastructure paid by our taxes; no mention of net neutrality & freedom of content even.
As I see

Too bad the U.S. is acting by inaction, instead of proposing a proper treaty that spells out our position, we just refuse to sign one that we don't like.

An opinion based on the unfounded assumption that there needs to be a treaty.

Why did the ITU propose a treaty that nobody noteworthy is willing to sign? To quote one article on this, the ITU Director General said that he was "surprised" by the dissent. The lesson we can take from this is that the ITU is obliviously out of touch.

The treaty was a result of proposals from many different countries including the US that were voted on in the meetings over the last several days. The language that is most being objected to was inserted in a late night session just before the end.

Attempting to force a whole US written treaty on the proceedings outside of the normal UN channels would be a far greater act of disregarding the ITU process than just refusing to sign the final version.

The US is not inactive in this regard, our government simply isn't going the 'open treaty' route. They have, however, been sending diplomats to various nations pressuring them to implement US friendly internet laws, and they have been using the US's place both among financial institutions and internet infrastructural to basically set the rules for the internet in other countries. Where countries are more oppressive, we have even been funding darknets to help subvert their own government....

Thanks for condensing every anti-American platitude into a single post for easy two-minutes of hate consumption. You get bonus points for using Star Wars references while citing exactly zero facts to support your arguments and pointing out exactly zero treaties that the U.S. has "violated".

Chemical Weapons Convention. Signed 1993, ratified 1997. Originally would have allowed countries to inspect other countries (including the US) for evidence of banned chemical weapons production. The treaty was modified to exempt only the United States from it.

There's also a number of treaties we haven't signed that are notable. For example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Convention on Discrimination of Women (Iran and Sudan are amongst the very few countries that also haven't signed on), Convention on the Rights of the Child (142 have signed so far), Mine Ban Treaty, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

There's also a number of treaties that, while we haven't formally withdrawn from or issued a statement on, we're in clear violation of and have stated our intent to continue doing so. Guantanamo Bay, for example, is a violation of numerous Geneva Conventions.

Withdrawing from a treaty is not the same as violating it. In international law, the rule of thumb is that a country is only obligated to comply with the laws (treaties) it has ratified, and is not bound by those that it has not ratified. (Note: One debatable exception to this is the Nuremberg Principles [wikipedia.org])

Furthermore, countries are free to withdraw from ("repudiate") any treaty at any time, unless that treaty has provisions that provide specific steps for (or prohibit) repudiation.

unless that treaty has provisions that provide specific steps for (or prohibit) repudiation.

All of the treaties mentioned that had been ratified had such provisions. The United States ignored those enforcement clauses. But thank you for your legal explanation, even though I had clearly delineated those which had been signed and ratified from those that had not been ratified.

Only the executive government (generally referred to in the US as "the president", in Europe generally "the king") is bound by contracts and treaties. The government as a whole (including the legislative and the judiciary) can do anything it wants, as long as certain procedures are observed.

Aside from some lilliputian states the monarch is definitely not a part of the executive, yes many European nations has monarchs as head of state(out of tradition) but they have been deprived of all political power. The only power they typically wield is through whatever influence they have over public opinion(since they are typically quite popular with the public but most of these nations have laws prohibiting the monarch from attempting to influence politics either directly or indirectly). In nations wi

Guantanamo Bay, for example, is a violation of numerous Geneva Conventions.

Have you actually read the Geneva Convention (which one)? You should at least read the first page or two of one of them before you comment. In order to be afforded the protections of the Geneva convention, several things need to happen.

The combatant needs to be a member of the armed forces of a sovereign state that signed the treaty. They need to be in uniform or clearly marked as being in the military. They need to be carrying their arms openly. They need to be under clear military command and control. A state of war needs to exist between the two sovereign states. The terrorists in Gitmo meet none of these conditions.

If you want to be afforded the protections of a Treaty, you have to follow the rules and meet the conditions of the treaty. Here is a news flash for you: Terrorists don't follow the rules.

You're right, they're just civilians we kidnapped from their country and put forever into a gulag. That's no violation of the Geneva Conventions -- it's just a violation of decency, and probably our constitution.

Have you actually read the Geneva Convention (which one)? You should at least read the first page or two of one of them before you comment. In order to be afforded the protections of the Geneva convention, several things need to happen.

The combatant needs to be a member of the armed forces of a sovereign state that signed the treaty.

No because other parts specifically makes it a war crime to be a combatant without being a member of the armed forces of a sovereign nation.

They need to be in uniform or clearly marked as being in the military.

No because the Geneva Convention specifically makes it a war crime to attempt to not use a uniform or to cover it up.

They need to be carrying their arms openly.

Yes, anyone that is a signatory does but even non-combatants has the right to bear arms for their own protections

They need to be under clear military command and control.

No, if they are part of the military then that command and control is assumed regardless of whether it exists or not.

Withdrawal from a treaty is not the same as violating it. The ABM treaty, for instance, had a clause requiring 6 months notice for withdrawal, which the US complied with. There were good reasons for withdrawal, even if you disagree with the final decision to do so.

BWC: from a quick search, we didn't withdraw from the treaty, but did refuse to sign on to an additional protocol for it. Maybe you have a better link.

CWC: we appear to be in the process of destroying the declared stockpile, although we m

At the very least Guantanamo Bay violates the Geneva Convention for all prisoners that were not captured during a firefight or directly after, civilians in a war zone has the right to bear arms for personal protection, and as such detaining people for just being in the wrong place and armed is clearly a violation of the protection they are afforded as civilians in a war zone. It gets more muddy if they were taken during or directly after a firefight as the Geneva Conventions assumes that all combatants are

You're right, I was overly broad. The third convention involving prisoners of war does place restrictions on who is protected, and many of the prisoners at GB would not qualify. The fourth convention requires humane treatment for civilians, but leaves fairly broad latitude for internment in article 41. Since the 4th convention does not include combatants in it's protections, plain clothes soldiers (or terrorists if you prefer) appear to be protected by neither the third nor 4th, but any individual not di

You do realize that of all the treaties that you are condeming the United States for not signing have in fact all been signed except the Mine Ban Treaty? What they haven't been is ratified. Without going through every one of them the likely reasons for them not getting ratified is either that they are incompatible with American values or the system of government or that they are frankly stupid.

I can't say I feel too bad about the US not ratifying whatever random stuff the UN General Assembly spits out. The

Why would we need or want to sign treaties regarding civil rights issues? Don't get me wrong, I'm not against women or children but aren't those more domestic issues? These things can be dealt with through a democratic process involving elected congress writing bills or in some cases a constitutional ammendment (ie right to vote). Treaties are papers that are negotiated mainly in secret and then are rule of law even above those laws which are created through democratic means. I think we have enough probl

Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; Signed 1972, withdrawn 2001: Treaty was with the Soviet Union, which had ceased to exist, but we were going on an informal understanding (not ratified) that Russia and a few other former USSR states were the successor. Also, we withdrew according to the withdrawal terms of the treaty itself, so we didn't break the treaty, but followed it.

Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: I believe we're still in that one. We just couldn't agree on an inspection protocol because we

>Guantanamo Bay, for example, is a violation of numerous Geneva Conventions: The Geneva Conventions apply to the signatories, or to a signatory country when fighting with another force that has agreed to abide by the Conventions. Those in Guantanamo are neither.

However, I don't think you want to go by the Convention. The main complaint is the fact that the detainees are there without trial, and could be there forever. If we classify them as prisoners of war under the Convention, then we can keep them until the end of the conflict, which will probably be forever. No trial, no nothing. And we can put 'em to work in the fields or the coal mines.

The provisions protecting civilians apply as long as you are a signatory regardless of whether the opponent is or has agreed to follow the conventions. Everyone not bearing the uniform of a nation's armed forces is a civilian until it apparent they are not(as in they open fire on you without provocation), civilians have the right to bear arms in times of conflict for personal protection so you cannot just remove the civilian status of someone just because they were found armed and in the wrong place.

The provisions protecting civilians apply as long as you are a signatory regardless of whether the opponent is or has agreed to follow the conventions

If they are civilian, we can put them on trial and lawfully execute them according to the Convention. IMHO, the tragedy of the situation is that all of the trials should have been done with long ago, the guilty imprisoned or executed. However, several lawsuits and political pressures delayed this for years.

To be fair, the US government does have a pretty long and distinguished history of signing agreements (or for that matter, domestic laws or, well, our own constitution) and then ignoring them if whatever administration is in power feels that the other parties can't stop them.

Not to say this is a US specific thing, it is probably a product of having enough power to ignore rules and not be stopped.. so the US gets highlight since we have quite a bit of power (both economic and military) so we end up on the 'winning' side of such violations more often then not.

The War of 1812 is often not seen as a loss for the US, but not a win either. It was not conquered, it suffered some important political building losses (the White House, Capitol Building). US troops also destroyed buildings in Canada, though they were not as high-profile.

Neither side won nor lost territory in the war, in fact, the war served to end border disputes. The real losers in the War of 1812 were the Native Americans. They lost -big time- as a result, and while historians can disagree on whether th

I never heard of this "International Treaty on Torture Fucking Contard", and from what I can tell we only interrogated "Fucking Contards". I see where you could be upset and will do my best to get the US to start torturing these Fucking Contards ASAP.

No it's a war crime, crime against humanity etc,. It's a matter of can you recognize that. For example, the declaration of Independence would have no validity by British law.. yet it is valid by innate human rights granted by God. In the same way, all human beings have a right to fair trials and not to be tortured. It's a matter of are you willing to recognize that right. And the argument that terrorists dont have the right to a fair trial is just silly. How do you know if someone is a terrorist without a

Also want to point out that the Bill of rights/constitution does NOT grant us our most important rights.. it merely respects and acknowledges them. Our rights (and those of all humans) come from the Creator/nature. If you read certain amendments you can tell from the wording that the right is something pre-existing and the document is only forbidding its infringement. For example, -- where is the right to bear arms granted? It's not. "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

Like not signing treatys that allow you to be punished for war crimes. Then well signing into law a law that says they will invade the Netherlands and forcably removeanyone held for war crimes. Yes, nice responsable country. The sort of views you want for a nuclear power.

I wish that the International Warcrimes Tribunal would put that law to the test because I very much doubt that the US would actually invade the Netherlands, as that would be a declaration of war with the European Union which would be well very problematic to say the least.

They probably are, but they're not as funny, and they aren't commenting on the UN treaty about disabled people in that article.

But what does a UN treaty about disabled people have to do with the topic, a UN treaty about the internet? For that I'll listen to Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, as they probably know a thing or two about the internet.

So you are using an appeal to authority argument using a comedian as your authority. You really have an interesting logic pattern

Even better, (s)he's using a strawman as well, as Tridus's "a treaty" is likely referring to the current ITU one, but "the treaty" in girlintraining's direct reply to that post is (by his/her own admission later down) referring to "the UN treaty about disabled people."

Well, not if they don't sign. That's kind of the point. If you don't sign it doesn't apply. And they won't sign. That sounds entirely reasonable.

There are many bad things sure, but this isn't one of them. For various reasons most of the western world don't seem to want to give the ITU control over the internet, and would rather control resides with the USA for the time being.

As a non American westener, I'd agree that this is by far the best choice.

Well, not if they don't sign. That's kind of the point. If you don't sign it doesn't apply. And they won't sign. That sounds entirely reasonable.

I was referring to them backing out of, rejecting, or not acknowledging, a few dozen treaties lately, not honoring extradition requests while stealing other citizens out of their own beds in other countries without that government's consent, and withdrawing from the Geneva diplomatic conventions, etc. When you've violated so many of your own treaties (Hello, Native Americans! How 'ya doin'?) your word no longer means anything. Treaties are contracts between countries... if you don't honor them, they become

Obviously you don't read all the news, AC. The UK refused to hand over Gary McKinnon. Ditto for Switzerland and Roman Polanski. The EU will not hand anyone over to the USA in cases where the death penalty may be sought.

I support the US actions just so I can watch people like you implode in a fit a mindless rage while using half-truths and outright lies to support your ravings. The best sign the US is not all lost is it's growing reluctance to concede any decision making power to the UN which as an orgranization is worthless and should have been shown the door a long time ago,

Whether they sign or don't sign isn't the problem: It's that the signature wouldn't mean anything anyway. But I can't blame you guys for having such terminally short memories... just ask Julian Assange about international treaty law. Or did you forget about him already?:/

Wasn't aware that Julian Assange was charged with breaking international treaty law. At least not yet anyway.

And yet, none of that pertains to this treaty at all. There's not even a need to defend the US and its actions here, because this entire argument is a derailment of the primary one: whether or not the US should sign this treaty. Instead we're ranting about completely unrelated treaties on topics that hold no bearing to this discussion. The only tidbit of the entire rant we can apply is that the US does not always consider itself beholden to treaties it signs.

FTFA: "Some countries at the table, however, have submitted proposals that would also give the UN some power when it comes to Internet regulation, which the U.S. and other countries oppose. Ambassador Kramer has been speaking out against the Internet component of the treaty since before the conference started on Dec. 3, but more than a week later, they are still included in a draft that's on the table."

Maybe you missed that part. Seems the countries opposing this (no, not just the "evil" US) are doing so precisely because no one actually "owns" the internet as it stands now. The second we allow a governing body, *ANY* governing body, to do so is the second we start seeing people get censored by tin-pot dictators wishing to cover up the evidence while committing all sorts of atrocities against their own people - and, yes, that goes for the US as well. If you look at quite a few of the countries who back this treaty (China and Russia are two of them), it's easy to come up with a list of folks who'd love nothing more than to narrow down the avenues through which information gets out, and for some pretty nefarious reasons.

I think the only reason you were modded "+5 Insightful" was because of your anti-American rant, not due to actual logic.

The merits of the ITU being involved in Internet protocol discussions aside, the notion that the Internet is some kind of anarchic, ungoverned, network that's not "owned" by any group, groups, or governments, is a ludicrous meme that has no basis in reality.

Every user of the Internet is governed by, at the very least, their local laws, and frequently affected, if not bound by, the laws of governments they would otherwise not normally be associated with. Content on the Internet is frequently censored, and

Nobody is going to deported to a dictatorship from their home country thanks to any rules imposed by the UN or ITU.

That's a straw man argument.

Most people worry about their own home country, that's why they'll take great care to ssh into a foreign country that won't tattle-tell on them.

And we're not talking solely about so-called "dictatorships" either. If you're a whistle-blower, or if you are of the wrong religion, or if you like to sample music from P2P, or if you're married and are having an affair, there can be negative consequences for not selecting a foreign jurisdiction to ssh-in that's more likely to protect yo

I think the only reason you were modded "+5 Insightful" was because of your anti-American rant, not due to actual logic.

Yes, and now I'm -1, Troll, apparently due to your pro-american rant, not due to actual logic. You missed my point -- I wasn't discussing the pros or cons of the treaty, but rather that it doesn't matter whether we sign it or not. I was mocking the idea that the United States has any diplomatic currency left to spend after we've pulled out of so many treaties and failed to sign others even when they're clearly aligned with our ideological values and would cost us nothing! We talk about how we're "world lead

Wow, what an amalgam of off-topic wrong. We aren't signing the treaty. So it doesn't matter about anything else you said - as wrong as what you said was. We (and several other countries) don't want to give Iran, North Korea, China, etc. the ability to use the UN to censor the internet. This is a GOOD THING that the US, UK, Australia, Norway, etc. are doing by not validating this treaty.

I find the US' anti-UN attitude as irritating as you do, but it's not just the US. As the summary mentions there are many other nations in opposition, and the European parliament attacked the ITU as vocally and before the US did. This move was supported and partly spearheaded by MP Amelia Andersdotter of the European Pirate Party. When she's against something concerning the internet, something just might be wrong with it.

The problem with disabled rights is that they are not a natural right, but requires massive governmental spending. That doesn't mean that countries are banned from implementing it, only that they aren't forced to do so. Some countries are simply not in the economic position to be able to afford that, and forcing them to spend all their money on medicare instead of trying to get out of poverty is unfair.And the current treaty isn't really an international agreement, because many countries oppose it, not only

The other problem with the Disabled Treaty is it is modeled on the American's with Disabilities Act.

While the ADA has done a lot of good for disabled people in our country, I don't see any value to signing a Treaty which would essentially duplicate it. It would unnecessarily complicate the discussion about accessibility and what is required and what isn't.

If there's any entity in all this acting like Darth Vader, its other governments wanting to censor and control.

In the larger picture, there's also the meme growth mechanism lodged in most of your brains to knee-jerk run to government as solution, and only solution, such as this treaty's call for government control mechanisms for spam, which I am sure will never, ever be misused for other types of data filtering.

There are actual reasons to reject the treaty other than the fact that it comes from the UN. Just as an example, it does not have [cato-at-liberty.org] the exemptions for small business that are present in the ADA.

Which might be true or false, but doesn't really have a thing to do with TFA. Further, the US not signing this one is a good thing. And if the US signed it, and didn't honor it, I wouldn't have much of a problem with that either.

Do you have anything to back up your claim that we're not signing this because some deep character fault of the US rather than the fact that it is a very bad treaty which erodes freedom and rights, and puts control of the internet directly in control of states with a deep tyranny

Did you just try to argue that US has no right to criticize policies of other countries? After all, it's the country that does by far the most of such critique due to it's global reach and amount of relationships because of this reach.

Actually you developed part of the internet and started the large scale infrastructure. You don't own routers and lines in other countries. Also www was invented at CERN as were numerous other things, which last time I checked is not in, nor from, the USA.

No see when I pay for something it's not yours anymore, it's mine. I realize that this is an archaic notion and every day the people who build things are trying to retain control of their cars/smart-phones/computer software/etc. But I'm an older person and not afraid to tell young whiper-snappers to get fucked. Don't worry, I'll be dead soon. By that time you'll realize what the next generation has cooked up just especially to screw you. We each get our turn.

Why would the US give up control of the Internet? We built it, it's ours.

Who's "we", and what does "built it" mean? If you mean "researchers paid by the US government developed many of the protocols", yes. If you mean "all of the infrastructure on the Internet was paid for by the US government and US individuals and organizations", no. If you mean "all of the work on all of the protocols used on the Internet was done by people paid by the US government", no, not even if you mean the core protocols.

Every workstation and network technology vendor had their own network protocols at some time or another (DECnet, TCP/IP,...) Eventually they all decided to adopt a single theoretical model (ISO) to help standardize their designs by splitting everything into layers. Ultimately TCP/IP won out for the upper layers, allowing all sorts of different standards to exist at the hardware level (wi-fi, ethernet).

I hate this stupid myth, Arpanet has fuck-all to do with the internet.
Both of them shared a separately created system, packet switching, to route data around it. THAT IS IT.

Many networks use packet switching. The ARPANET used, and the Internet uses, the same protocols to implement packet switching (except for protocols that didn't exist yet at the time the ARPANET went away, such as IPv6). TCP and IP were originally developed for use on the ARPANET.

Arpanet and Internet are two completely different beasts.

Yes. Given that the ARPANET no longer exists, and the Internet does, it would be very difficult for them to be the same.

Internet was a joint creation with US and UK after they figured out they were working on similar systems and decided to scale it across seas.

The ARPANET ceased being US-only in 1973, when NORSAR joined [norsar.no]. If you're thinking of JANET [uknof.com], that existed at